Tag: donald trump

Thousands of migrants return home by boat after Trump’s crackdown on asylum

Migrants who once risked their lives traversing the jungles of the Darien Gap in search of asylum in the US are now returning to their home countries.

After former President Donald Trump‘s crackdown on asylum policies, many migrants, primarily from Venezuela and Colombia, have abandoned their attempts to reach the US.

According to authorities, this has resulted in a “reverse flow” of migrants.

Speedboats are now transporting them from Panama back to Colombia, navigating the dense jungle rivers near the border.

Many had previously spent months, even over a year, in Mexico, awaiting asylum appointments through the CBP One app, which has since been discontinued under Trump’s policies.

Karla Castillo, a 36-year-old Venezuelan traveling with her younger sister, said: “When Trump arrived and eliminated the application (CBP One) all our hopes went up in smoke.”

The boats depart from a rural part of Panama and cross the seas in packs to reach Colombia.

They were part of a well-oiled migrant smuggling machine, which once raked in money from the steady flow of hundreds of thousands of people headed north nearly a year ago.

Keep reading

Hours After Trump Paused All Arms To Ukraine, Zelensky Reportedly To Sign Minerals Deal Under ‘Trump’s Strong Leadership’

Is President Trump going to announce ‘mission accomplished’ on the Ukraine minerals deal during tonight’s speech before a joint session of Congress? A breaking Reuters headline strongly suggests this is the case:

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and Ukraine plan to sign the much-debated minerals deal following a disastrous Oval Office meeting Friday in which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was dismissed from the building, four people familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump has told his advisers that he wants to announce the agreement in his address to Congress Tuesday evening, three of the sources said, cautioning that the deal had yet to be signed and the situation could change.

But as we’ve seen in the last several days since Friday, a lot can happen in one afternoon. Zelensky gave an ‘almost apology’ on Tuesday (below), but not quite what the administration seems to be asking for.

Keep reading

JUST IN: President Trump Resumes Tariffs Against Canada, Mexico, and China

President Trump has reinstated his tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act after temporarily suspending the tariffs last month during negotiations to secure the border and stop the flow of fentanyl. 

However, the President told reporters on Monday that there is “no room left for Mexico or for Canada,” citing the “vast amounts of fentanyl” that has come into the U.S.

Trump: No room left for Mexico or for Canada. No, the tariffs, you know, they’re all set. They go into effect tomorrow… And just so you understand, vast amounts of fentanyl have poured into our country from from Mexico, and as you know, also from China, where it goes to Mexico and goes to Canada. And China also had an additional 10%, so it’s 10% plus 10%. And it comes in from Canada, and it comes in from Mexico. And that’s a very important thing to say.

Trump slapped the tariffs on the three countries under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in February.

  • 25% tariffs on all Mexico imports
  • 25% tariffs on nearly all Canadian imports — 10% on Canadian energy resources
  • 10% tariffs on all China imports

An additional ten percent tariff on China was imposed on Tuesday, bringing the total to 20%.

Keep reading

CNN Vehemently Rejects Joe Rogan-Fueled Conspiracy Theory That CNN Aired Trump Rally Because They Knew He’d Be Shot

CNN vehemently rejected a conspiracy theory that has taken hold on the Right — which suggests that the network somehow had advance knowledge of the attempt on President Donald Trump’s life.

The theory has been making the rounds following Joe Rogan’s podcast with Elon Musk — which was posted on Friday . In a clip from the podcast being widely circulated, Rogan seemed to suggest that because CNN broadcast the rally, it knew about the assassination attempt beforehand.

“You also know that CNN streamed it live, which I do not believe they did for any other rally — and certainly not for a rally in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania. Like, there’s a lot of weird shit.”

Keep reading

Trump Eases Restrictions on Airstrikes, Special Operations Raids

President Trump has eased restrictions on US airstrikes and special operations raids in areas outside of countries officially considered combat zones by the US, giving US military commanders the freedom to launch attacks without permission from the White House.

The order reverts back to the policy of the first Trump administration, doing away with restrictions President Biden added to US drone strikes and raids outside of Iraq and Syria, the only two countries the US officially considers combat zones.

Biden’s rules required permission from the White House to target militants outside Iraq and Syria unless they were high-ranking commanders. But the rule had a major loophole: Strikes could be ordered if they could be framed as “self-defense.” In Somalia, the US almost always claims its airstrikes are launched in defense of the US-backed Mogadishu-based government.

Trump’s rules give commanders the ability to target any militants belonging to organizations the US considers terrorist organizations without White House approval. The easing of the restrictions was confirmed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who shared a CBS News report about the step on X and wrote, “Correct.”

The news comes amid an uptick in US airstrikes in Somalia and Syria. US officials told CBS that al-Shabaab in Somalia, which the US targeted three times in recent weeks, and the Houthis in Yemen were discussed as potential targets by the Trump administration.

Keep reading

What Trump can Learn from McKinley’s Tariffs

If Trump is to be successful as regards tariffs, he must look at President William McKinley’s successes and mistakes.

As a young, struggling congressman, William McKinley’s friend President Rutherford Hayes told him to specialize and develop expertise in tariff policy. McKinley’s first legislative effort as a congressman was to increase tariffs in 1877. McKinley rose quickly to chair of the Ways and Means Committee. McKinley was instrumental in forming a Tariff Commission and became a framer of the 1882 Tariff Bill.

His chairmanship led to the passage of the famous “McKinley” Tariff Act of 1890. The Tariff of 1890 went too far and lacked the appropriate guardrails to address inflation and potential trade wars. The 1890 Tariff roughly added a 50% tariff on all manufacturing imports. McKinley’s colleagues overruled him, following the model of tariffs as revenue producers versus McKinley’s model of protectionism for American industry. The short-term adverse effects and political impact cost McKinley and many other Republicans their seats two years later.

McKinley’s return to Congress in 1896 would be the forge for America’s first voting alliance of workingmen and manufacturing capitalists, which won him the White House twice.  

The era of McKinley tariff protection lasted from 1880 to 1920. In 1880, the American steel industry struggled to expand against British steel’s supremacy but flourished under the McKinley tariffs. Steel production went from 1.3 million tons in 1880 to 11.2 million tons in 1900 to 28.3 million tons in 1910. In 1898, the American steel industry surpassed Britain in pig iron production. The U.S. gross national product grew from an estimated $11 billion in 1880 to $18.7 billion in 1890 to $35.3 billion in 1910. The American glass industry was another struggling industry in 1880 due to imports. By 1910, the McKinley tariffs reversed the trend, and the glass industry had increased its output five to tenfold. During the peak tariff years of 1896 to 1901 under President McKinley, steel production increased 111%, electrical equipment production increased 271%, and farm equipment increased 149%. During the same period, wages increased by 10% and employment by 20%. Even more impressive to free traders, prices fell as productivity and innovation mushroomed. Macro and microeconomic data of the period continue to be debated, but McKinley won the working-class dinner table.

Keep reading

Trump To Host First White House Crypto Summit On March 7

US President Donald Trump will host the first White House Crypto Summit on March 7, bringing together industry leaders to discuss regulatory policies, stablecoin oversight, and the potential role of Bitcoin in the US financial system.

The attendees will include “prominent founders, CEOs, and investors from the crypto industry,” along with members of the President’s Working Group on Digital Assets, according to an announcement shared by the White House “AI and crypto czar,” David Sacks, in a March 1 X post.

The summit will be chaired by Sacks and administered by Bo Hines, the executive director of the Working Group.

Keep reading

Trump, Vance School Zelensky on Reality of His War

Volodymyr Zelensky has become accustomed to being feted in Western cities as the second-coming of Churchill, appearing before awards ceremonies, film festivals, the New York Stock Exchange and various national parliaments, (though the Academy Awards twice turned him down.)

All that came crashing down on him Friday in the 102-foot circumference, 816 sq. foot office at the epicenter of still the most powerful nation on earth, as he was met by a buzzsaw of resistance from the president and vice president of the United States. Zelensky was dressed down, even about his dress, being told he was ungrateful, disrespectful, had lost to Russia and was risking “World War III.”

It’s still hard to register that a factual alternative to the West’s propaganda story on Ukraine has largely been accepted by President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance in a dramatic reversal from the office’s last occupant.

While there are members of Trump’s national security team, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, who previously swallowed whole the fantasy of Russia’s “unprovoked” invasion of an “innocent” Ukraine, there were two officials who during Trump’s campaign likely filled him in on the facts. 

Keep reading

Trump Signs Executive Order Making English the Official Language of the United States

The United States has always been a land defined by shared values. Our founding documents established principles of liberty and justice that have guided generations. Citizens from diverse backgrounds have united around these ideals, creating the strongest nation on earth.

Americans have overcome countless challenges by working together toward common goals. This unity requires effective communication and mutual understanding—something that’s becoming increasingly rare in our divided times, wouldn’t you say?

For nearly 250 years, our nation has operated without an official language. That changed today.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday making English the official language of the United States for the first time in American history. The order rescinds a mandate issued by former President Bill Clinton in 2000 that required federal agencies and recipients of federal funding to provide language assistance to non-English speakers.

Fox News reported: “The order is intended to celebrate multilingual Americans who have learned English and passed it down to their family members, while also ’empowering immigrants’ to reach the American dream via a common language.”

Keep reading